Claire d'Albe (The Original French Text) , and: Claire d'Albe (An English Translation) , and: Infertility and the Novels of Sophie Cottin (review)

134 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION17:1 period are, she necessarily butts heads with psychoanalytic theorists who find Freud problematic. Greenfield is, however, fully aware ofcritics (such asJane Gallop) who insist on separating maternal theory from the assumptions of psychoanalysis. Greenfield also defends herselffrom anticipated criticism for using psychoanalysis to interpret pre-Freudian fiction. Ifsome of Greenfield's readings are provocative, they are always responsible and grounded. For example, her analysis ofmother-daughter eroticism in The Italian is surprisingly convincing. Here she argues that Radcliffe depicts homoerotic incest not only as normal and as less catastrophic than heterosexual incest but also as a source of security within the family. Greenfield's emphasis on the ideological and psychological complexity ofthe novels she discusses makes this book a remarkable and groundbreaking contribution to cultural studies of modierhood and to literary history. Her dazzling analysis ofmaternal discourse contributes to our understanding not only of the rise of the novel but also of psychoanalytic theory. Deborah D. Rogers University of Maine Sophie Cottin. Claire d'Albe (The Original French Text), ed. Margaret Cohen. NewYork: Modern Language Association ofAmerica, 2002. xxviii+158pp. US$9.95. ISBN 0-87352-925-1. Sophie Cottin. Claire d'Albe (An English Translation), trans. Margaret Cohen. NewYork: Modern Language Association ofAmerica, 2002. xxxiii+155pp. US$9.95. ISBN 0-87352-926-X. Michael J. Call. Infertility and the Novels ofSophie Cottin. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2002; London: Associated University Presses, 2002. 167pp. US$35. ISBN 0874138078. Many of the texts republished by the MLA since 1993 are by the forgotten women writers of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France. They were "buried" more whole-heartedly than in the United States and Britain. For, patriarchal though these societies were, diey were less oppressive than the France that enshrined misogyny in its Napoleonic Civil Code and that, despite its influential 1970s women's movement, still lags in its promotion of women's rights. And yet, as is clear in the case of the author Sophie Cottin (1770-1807), France has never been a monolithic culture: it was precisely in the establishment's partial acknowledgment of women's intelligence and sexual self-determination that the conflict lay for many female authors. REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS135 The MLA texts are central ones, eitherbecause readers now concur that they are masterpieces, such as those by Isabelle de Charrière, Françoise de Graffigny, and Claire de Duras, orbecause theywere best-sellers ofdie period, showing how cunningly certain women tapped into the Zeitgeist (and consequently achieved real earning power). Cottin belongs to the latter category. Over a seven-year period (1799-1806), she publishedfive popularnovels, and though their sententiousness and plot contrivances are not always to modern tastes, at the time each was still more successful dian the last Cottin's heroines are courageous and defy convention. Thus her fourth, Mathilde, travels to Jerusalem with die Crusaders; herfifth, Elisabeth, makes a perilous ten-month journey from Siberia to Moscow to plead with the Tsar for her exiled father's pardon—it is granted, and Elisabeth marries her suitor. This last tale was a wildfire hit not only in France but also abroad, particularly in the United States. No doubt its picture of a brave family living in isolated and harsh conditions struck a chord, but also, and perhaps especially, it appealed through its foregrounding ofenterprising and adventurous womanhood. Claire d'Albeis Cottin's first novel; the heroine, ifnot yet a traveller, undergoes an adventure ofthe heart Married to a much older man, she falls in love with another of her own age and finally, after an inner turmoil that almost drives hermad, she has sexwith him—justonce; soon after, she and the young man die. But Cottin has found one ofher keymotifs. Whatis significant is that, despite the obligatory punishment, the intense enjoyment ofthe act is emphasized both before and during consummation: "I felt his hand on my heart, all my blood rushed towards it; and he felt it beat with violence. ... I inhaled his breath, it set me on fire .... At this momentFrederic's lips touched mine; I was lost, ifvirtue by a last effort had not rent the veil ofpleasure wrapped around me" (80-81, 89). Claire...

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